Democrats Need to Suck It Up and Stop Eating Their Young

Let’s first acknowledge every current candidate running in the Democratic presidential primary is faulty is some way or another. They’re all plagued with mistakes and missteps, old and new. Their characters, demeanors and perspectives are either too archaic, too naive or too bombastic.

They make promises that can’t possibly be kept, barring someone burns down the Senate. They’re not transparent about where they’re going to dig up funding for their lofty missions. They don’t go far enough for progressives and go too far for moderates. They haven’t connected with, heard and understood marginalized communities they would need to step up and represent. Their fundraisers are too fancy or they’ve failed to raise enough money to compete. They’re pretty good overall but just can’t be depended on to survive the Trump campaign in tact. Their bangs are too angry or their faces too young. Their fandom is too aggressive, their campaigns have follied, their call courts fields and each other liars.

The Berners are pissed off at Warren, the Yang Gang is already already to cut a fool, the K Hivers refuse to acknowledge Kamala dropped out and everybody wishes Biden would just shut it with the Corn Pops and phonographs.

Democratic presidential primary candidates who qualified for the first round of debates. Photo compilation courtesy of InStyle.

Dems have 16 different, contradictory, purity tests — if you pass one, you definitely failed another. No wonder we never get anything done on the left.

Voters should make demands of their candidate, but there is no way one person can possibly appease everybody. There’s no time to go back to the weird science machine and build the perfect candidate — this is what we’ve got, or it’s Trump. Period.

Democrats are beautifully inspiring in the way they civically engage, armed with hope and vigilance, and simultaneously frustrating as hell. They want so bad to effect change for the better that they often won’t recognize that there is a forest beyond the trees smacking them in the face. Dems aren’t known for small dreams — they’re kind of Texas-like in the go big or go home department — but when those dreams don’t perfectly align for the super diverse constituents that make up the big D party, things quickly turn all Hunger Games.

Democrats have a bad habit of eating their young. Because they won’t compromise to move a few steps forward, they end up getting their stools pushed in on the road to 10 steps back.

The protest voters are already rearing their ugly heads, threatening to not vote at all because the lineup at the moment isn’t perfect. Give me a fucking break. If any of you are in the mind to Jill Stein this one, do yourselves a favor and mull over how well that worked last time around.

The fight is sickening — all in for one champion or for none at all. Here’s some advice for Democratic voters, suck up the self-righteous bullshit and vote the best you can to get us out of the hot mess we’re currently in. While you’re busy being super principled, there are still kids in cages, women’s health rights disappearing and Russia is calling the shots. You cool with that?

That’s the reality we are living in and the only way out is for the left to put the knives down and do the best with what we’ve got. Survive to fight for perfection another day. Basically, get the hell over yourself — you’re not as important as the whole.

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We write for busboys, poets, social workers, students, artists, musicians, magicians, mathematicians, maniacs, yodelers and everyone else out there who wants to enjoy life not as a rich person, but as a real person. Namely, we write for you.